Homecoming!

  Introducing the new home of Qwatra Gardens! After years of dedicated effort, diligence, planning, and tight budgeting, Chuck and I have found our little piece of heaven! I wake up every morning and can't believe we live here! We could not have possibly found anything more perfect! Right now we are renting, but the owners have said they will be selling in the near future, so guess who's first on the list to buy! 


The wildlife here is CRAZY abundant! We have only been here a week and we have seen resident flocks of deer, swarms of turkeys, herds of ravens, dozens of squirrels playing in the trees (and leaving piles of pine cone scales all over the ground!), an eagle sitting in the top of the tree above the chicken pens (covered in chain link for a reason!), I heard an elk trumpeting just around the river bend, (yes I just said that!), and a woodpecker was knocking on our bedroom wall, and was then sitting on the balcony outside our bedroom door this morning!  Let me remind you that it's only been our first WEEK! I'm in paradise! Let's just hope we can keep the bears out of the kitchen! ;)
  We only have 5 acres at present, but that will be just about right for a small scale to start. I trust Creator and know full well that when the time is right, more land will become available for us to purchase. The front of the property out by the road is sunny and flat and will be the place for the greenhouse and the majority of the gardening. It will take quite a fence to discourage elk, moose, rabbits, raccoons, and quite probably bears. Of course, we will just have to plant a few mulberry trees and keep everyone fed, fat, and happy! We have permission to grow an edible landscape and short of chopping trees (not that we would consider that anyway) are at liberty to grow whatever we like in the flower beds and planting areas around the house! I can't wait to get started!

Here Come the Buckeyes!

Bringing Back the Buckeye

I have been patiently waiting for Buckeyes, and now I am finally rewarded! This very special breed is making a comeback from near extinction, a fate many breeds were and still are facing after the introduction of commercial hybrid chickens that convert feed into meat and eggs with such tempting efficiency that almost all else is ignored. Now the farm world is realizing what a mistake that is. Hybrids are weak. They are incapable of reproducing themselves, are prone to disease,  cannot forage well, can't defend themselves, and as a result, quite frankly, commercial grade chickens are severely lacking in personality!

Buckeye Roo, Crains Run Ranch

So, lesson learned, farmers and homesteaders are turning once again to old heritage breed chickens. And in my opinion, the Buckeye tops the list! Buckeyes were created as a breed in Ohio; the only American breed credited to a woman as its creator. With their compact pea combs and short tucked waddles, these birds were made for survival! Whether hot and dry or shivery cold, Buckeyes are right at home, scratching and pecking for this and that, able to find and forage for most if not all of their own food.The hens are excellent mothers and will happily raise their own babies if given the chance. The roos are watchful protectors, but are not aggressive to people. (though there is always that ONE)
 This breed is noted for being curious and friendly, and will gladly accept treats right from your hand. Some even enjoying being held and petted or even riding around on your shoulder. Roosters weigh in at 9 pounds; hens are about 6 1/2 and lay a light tan egg every other day. 

Strombergs Hen

After asking around and waiting for several breeders, I finally decided to ask Strombergs if they had a few, even though they are sold out according to their website. Strombergs is recognized by the American Buckeye Club for their line of Buckeyes. It was my lucky day! After checking with the incubator room, they had just enough to fill my order, and said there probably wouldn't be any more till spring! So we will be getting our babies on Sept 10th. As I expected, there is a lot of demand for this breed, and more buyers are lining up than I have chickens! I ordered 100, 88 pullets and 12 cockerels, so I will be selling 10 starter flocks of 7 pullets and a roo, and keeping the last 2 roos and about 18 pullets for starting our own flock. We will grow them out over winter and be ready to breed in the spring! WOOT!
decided to ask Strombergs if they by any chance had a few extras, even though their website says they are sold out for the year.

Speckled Sussex

I am super excited to announce our new flock of Speckled Sussex! We have 11 hens and two roos. We bought them as adults from a local farm from three young brothers who started their own business! The chickens each have names, though I can't remember them all yet. The roos are Jeremiah and Markus. That's easy enough. The girls are Veronica, Ruby, Screech, Linda, Philadelphia, Daisy, Leigha, Carry, Snow, Charity, and Constance. So far I know Ruby, Snow, and Constance.
Speckled Sussex are amazing dual purpose chickens. They are nice size birds; roos are around 9 pounds and hens come in at around 7.
Sussex chickens lay a light cream egg about every other day. See the larger eggs in the picture to the right (smaller ones are bantam eggs). We have had our girls only a few days, and they really didn't stop laying, even during their transition period. Usually after moving hens to a new location, they will stop laying for a couple weeks until they get used to their new home. But these girls took it all in stride and continue to lay about 3 to 5 eggs a day. I expect that to bump up to a solid 5 or 6 eggs a day in another week or so.
The best part about Speckled Sussex is their ability to forage and feed themselves! They eat anything and everything! Whether you're a prepper looking for a chicken that can survive Armageddon, or just someone looking for a chicken that won't break the piggy bank, this is the breed for you!
As an added bonus, this breed is super friendly and entertaining! They are such bundles of personality and so fun to watch! Since each one looks different, it's easy to keep track of which one is which and fun to give them names.
I'm looking forward to my adventures with this breed! And of course, I already have a breeding project in mind! ;)

Jerry, lost his tail in the move, but foot is better! 

More to come!

Bad case of Bumblefoot

New Chickens! I'll write a separate post about them soon, but we inherited one small problem. Jeremiah, the rooster, was battling a pretty nasty case of bumblefoot. Now I'm actually using that as a rather blanket term for an open, infected, swollen wound on the bottom of the foot. Poor Jerry was limping around, obviously in a great deal of pain. In my initial exam, I learned this was a very deep round hole, plugged with a deep hard cork made of a bloody scab full of all sorts of dirt, tiny gravel, and grass bits. The scab had deep cracks going all the way down to the irritated open hole, that continually reopened and

allowed fresh bleeding. So for a few days, he came inside into a quarantine bin of pine shavings that wouldn't get packed into his wound. There he could stay put, and give himself a chance to heal! He was quite happy to accept that offer, and spent most of the fist few days sitting quietly or snoozing with his foot stretched out. We got his owie all cleaned up, which took a great deal of soaking in salt water with turmeric added to disinfect and stimulate healing. Then we put a few drops of oregano oil into the wound. After the fist couple days, I alternated the oregano with lavender oil; plus he got a few lavender drops in his bin to help with the idea of calm and healing. It is going to take a long time for this foot to completely heal, but I am happy to report that the swelling is much better and it is healing quite nicely! We will keep after it, and I'll report back as he gets better! :)

 Update! Sept 4...
He is back out in the pen with his girls, and since they are on grass, it is much easier on his foot. He is still limping, but not nearly as bad, and he still sleeps in the nest hut because it's too painful to jump up to the roost. But his foot is looking much better! :)

Mille Fleur D'Uccle

First, if you don't know how to pronounce that last word, it's like "Dew CLAY". It's a city in France where these delightful little rascals are from. Mille Fleur is the name of the color pattern and is French for "Thousand Flower," which is a fitting name for a chicken with a thousand spots! These are some of the world's most colorful chickens, though they are pint size. This is a true bantam breed, with no large size version. Roos tip the scale at a whopping 26 ounces, with the hens not far behind at 22 ounces.

But what they lack in size, they make up for in spirit, not to mention egg laying ability! Our little half pints pop out a white to barely faint cream egg nearly every day! Their eggs are a bit small, but they are actually kinda huge compared to the size of the little bird! They readily go broody if given the chance, and make good mamas. They are great foragers, and it is such fun to watch them chase a grasshopper or moth across the yard. Their fluffy beards and feathered legs and feet really add endearing comedy to their antics.
Our birds were purchased as show quality stock. Our ladies, Prima, Bella, and Dona, are from a breeder north of Spokane who raised multiple show winners from her line, and our roo, Marcel, is from Oregon where he won best in show at the state fair! I'm looking forward to trying my hand (wing?) at the fair. Sadly, Prima is my favorite, but she isn't up to show standards; she has clean legs and feet. I prefer the clean legs and I think they do too. Foot feathers are messy and in the way. They trip on them and are always having to clean them. When not in show dress, I will sometimes cut their feathers off their feet for them. They really appreciate it.  Especially in winter when their feet tend to get packed with snow. :)

Prima

Marcel

Back in the Pacific Northwest! YIPEEE!!!

Hello Spokane! It's great to be home! Actually, we have been here for a couple months, but we have been doing a lot of other things to get established and settled here, so Qwatra has been in limbo since June! Wow! Has that much time gone by?! We are staying on a friend's farm for the time being while we search for our dream farm. This is exciting, but frustrating! There are so many beautiful farms out there! My dreams keep getting bigger and bigger- but more on that in a later post! ;)
We have lots of new things developing and will be back in business shortly! WOOT!
See ya soon!

Mystery Chicks

I love this game. It's the best part of breeding critters of any kind. What will the new babies look like? Did my critters make something new? 

So here is just such a game. The parents are our mottled mystery mix bantams. Hearafter known as our M&M&Ms. ;-)

We just hatched our first babies and what a variety! First, this little one was what I expected:

A little black and butter cream puff. 

We also got a whole bunch of these little jewels with coal spots on their heads! Looks like my guess of mottled Japanese for the parents linage was spot on!  *giggle*!  ;-)

No, that's not a marker dot. That's the color they were born with! 

We also got a little chocolate drop. This one is a rich dark brown on top and buttery underneath, named Toffee!  ;)

Chocolate? :-/ Where did he come from?!

And then.... (Drumroll)....

We got a solid black chick! Black legs, black eyes, black beak,... Is he black on the inside?  I gentle looked in his mouth. Nope. Rats. :-(

But still a cute little guy! 

I wonder what this one will look like when he grows up? There must be Silkie in the mix! 

Cotton Patch Geese!

Exciting and busy weekend! The best part was trading a group of Bielefelder chicks for two beautiful cotton patch geese! Thank you Regina! I have been researching these beautiful geese for quite some time. They are the only American land race of domestic goose. They were used in the cotton fields back in the day to eat the grassy weeds while leaving the crop untouched. Today, they can be used the same way to weed our vegetable gardens! Im not entirely sure what they will and won't eat, but I'll find out soon enough.
On the way home, our new girl didn't waste any time. She laid a      beautiful white egg, right in her crate!
After sleeping overnight in their transport pen, our pair ventured out and have taken over our fallow garden, already putting quite a dent in the grass!We have some tomatoes, strawberries, onions, and yellow squash planted, but they have not so much as touched any of those, preferring instead to nibble the grass down to the dirt! These guys are better than Roundup! Cheaper too! Just give them water and grass!



For their nighttime quarters, our geese decided the center compost bin was a perfect fit. We agreed that would be a safe and secure spot for sleeping and nesting, so I dug it out and filled the bottom with fresh hay and straw. Chuck sturdied it up and added a roof and door.

They love it! They spent most of today inside and this afternoon laid a SECOND egg!! YIPPEEEE!!!

Mystery Mottled Japanese Cochin Bantam Cross

Meet the newbies! They are cute, sweet, and the girls have been laying non stop since they got here! As near as I can tell, these must be a mix of Japanese and Cochin banties. What do you think? Does anyone else see other breeds mixed in? They lay eggs like crazy, so we are eager to see what hatches out. Mutts they are, but they will be a perfect start to a pet project of mine. ;)
Their egg laying ability is definitely impressive.  They are still in quarantine, but they don't seem to care. They still lay cute little cream colored eggs every day. Two of them have laid every day since they got here, one was broody, but after three days, she is laying now too. The little roo is very personable. He crows at us every time we come out the door. He is protective and very gentlemanly with this girls, clucking and cooing to them all the time and showing them the best food bits. I love his body shape and confirmation. His head was a bit picked because of competition with a few other (bigger) roosters, but the feathers are growing back already. I'll have to get some new pictures when he gets all feathered out again. Have a look at my great impromptu nest boxes! They Love them! I have bricks lining the bottom of these standard wash bins from Wally World, so they don't knock them over. Also a couple chunks of concrete in the bottom of the bigger bin. We already have these salt and pepper chicks all named. The roo is Chip. The darkest hen is Inca, the lightest is Crystal, and the medium speckled is Sprinkles. :)

Incubator is FULL!

This is what we have been working so hard for! Hooray! :D
Finally! We now have a professional incubator, thanks to a generous donation by a very supportive benefactor (THANK YOU!) and all three trays are in operation as of today! YAY! The trays are already almost filled to capacity, but we will be adding more chicken breeds soon; so before long, we are going to have to buy incubator number two! Right now we have mostly Bielefelders, but we are also hatching out some of our Easterfelders (Our Bielefelder roos over the Easter eggers we originally got for eating eggs!) 
We also have a couple of newcomers who have a few eggs in the 'bator too! More on them in the next post! :)

Mississippi Magic

"You can't cut it out, It'll grow right back." I laugh as I explain jungle control against our thickets and thorns here in the Deep South. It's like the garden of Eden.... on Steroids! You just can't kill plants here. Take this fence post, for example. That's right, this is a fence post. We cut it out in the woods in an area we needed to reclaim... again. We stuck it in the ground while still green. Over the rest of the summer, fall, and through winter, this post re-rooted itself and re-grew branches!

Life on the Farm

SO much has happened over the past year and a half that we just could not say it all in words, so we decided to say it in pictures!